B.2. “The Windfall Clause will shift investment to competitive non-signatory firms.”
The concern here is that, when multiple firms are competing for windfall profits, a firm bound by the Clause will be at a competitive disadvantage because unbound firms could offer higher returns on new capital. That is, investors would prefer firms that are not subject to a “tax” on their profits in the form of the Windfall Clause. This is especially bad because it could mean that more prosocial firms (i.e., ones that have signed the Clause) would be at a disadvantage to non-signatory firms, making a prosocial “winner” of an AI development race less likely.238
This is a valid concern which warrants careful consideration. Our current best model for how to address this is that the Clause could commit (or at least allow for the option of) distributions of equity,* instead of cash. This could either take the form of stock options or contingent convertible bonds. This avoids the concern identified by allowing firms to, for example, issue new, preferred shares which would have superior claim to windfall profits compared to donees. This significantly diminishes the concern that the Clause would dilute the value of new shares issued in the company and allows the bound firm to raise capital unencumbered by debt owed under the Clause.† Notably, firm management would still have fiduciary duties towards stock-holding windfall donees.
I agree that the problem (that investors will prefer to invest in non-signatories, and hence it will reduce the likelihood of pro-social firms winning, if pro-social firms are more likely to sign) does seem like a credible issue. I found the description of the proposed solution rather confusing however. Given that I worked as an equity analyst for five years, I would be surprised if many other readers could understand it!
Here are my thoughts on a couple of possible versions of what you might be getting at- apologies if you actually intended something else altogether.
1) The clause will allow the company to make the required payments in stock rather than cash.
Unfortunately this doesn’t really make much difference, because it is very easy for companies to alter this balance themselves. Consider that a company which had to make a $1 billion cash payment could fund this by issuing $1 billion worth of stock; conversely a company which had to issue stock to the fund could neutralise the effect on their share count by paying cash to buy back $1 billion worth of ordinary shares. This is the same reason why dividends are essentially identical to share buybacks.
2) The clause will allow subsequent financing to be raised that is senior to the windfall clause claim, and thus still attractive to investors.
‘Senior’ does not mean ‘better’ - it simply means that you have priority in the event of bankruptcy. However, the clause is already junior to all other obligations (because a bankrupt firm will be making ~0% of GDP in profit and hence have no clause obligations), so this doesn’t really seem like it makes much difference. The issue is dilution in scenarios when the company does well, which is when the most junior claims (typically common equity, but in this case actually the clause) perform best.
The fundamental reason these two approaches will not work is that the value of an investment is determined by the net present value of future cashflows (and their probability distribution). Given that the clause is intended to have a fixed impact on these flows (as laid out in II.A.2), the impact on firm valuation is also rather fixed, and there is relatively little that clever financial engineering can do about it.
3) The clause will have claim only to profits attributable to the existing shares at the time of the signing on. Any subsequent equity will have a claim on profits unencumbered by the clause. For example, if a company with 80 shares signs on to the clause, then issues 10 more shares to the market, the maximum % of profits that would be owed is 50%*80/(80+10) = 44.4%
This would indeed avoid most of the problems in attracting new capital (save only the fear that a management team willing to screw over their previous investors will do so to you in the future, which is something investors think about a lot).
However, it would also largely undermine the clause by being easy to evade due to the fungibility of capital. Consider a new startup, founded by three guys in a basement, that signs the clause. Over the next few years they will raise many rounds of VC, eventually giving up the majority of the company, all excluded from the clause. Additionally, they pay themselves and employees in stock or stock options, which are also exempt from the clause. Eventually they IPO, having successfully diluted the clause-affected shares to ~1%. In order to finish the job, they then issue some additional new equity and use the proceeds to buy back the original shares.
One interesting point on the other side, however, is the curious tendency for tech investors to ignore dilution. Many companies will exclude stock-based-comp from their adjusted earnings, and analysts/investors are often willing to go along with this, saying “oh but it’s a non-cash expense”. Furthermore, SBC is excluded from Free Cash Flow, which is the preferred metric for many tech investors. So it is possible that (for a while) investors would simply ignore it.
I agree that the problem (that investors will prefer to invest in non-signatories, and hence it will reduce the likelihood of pro-social firms winning, if pro-social firms are more likely to sign) does seem like a credible issue. I found the description of the proposed solution rather confusing however. Given that I worked as an equity analyst for five years, I would be surprised if many other readers could understand it!
Apologies that this was confusing, and thanks for trying to deconfuse it :-)
Subsequent feedback on this (not reflected in the report) is that issuing low-value super-junior equity at the time of signing (and then holding it in trust) is probably the best option for this.
I agree that the problem (that investors will prefer to invest in non-signatories, and hence it will reduce the likelihood of pro-social firms winning, if pro-social firms are more likely to sign) does seem like a credible issue. I found the description of the proposed solution rather confusing however. Given that I worked as an equity analyst for five years, I would be surprised if many other readers could understand it!
Here are my thoughts on a couple of possible versions of what you might be getting at- apologies if you actually intended something else altogether.
1) The clause will allow the company to make the required payments in stock rather than cash.
Unfortunately this doesn’t really make much difference, because it is very easy for companies to alter this balance themselves. Consider that a company which had to make a $1 billion cash payment could fund this by issuing $1 billion worth of stock; conversely a company which had to issue stock to the fund could neutralise the effect on their share count by paying cash to buy back $1 billion worth of ordinary shares. This is the same reason why dividends are essentially identical to share buybacks.
2) The clause will allow subsequent financing to be raised that is senior to the windfall clause claim, and thus still attractive to investors.
‘Senior’ does not mean ‘better’ - it simply means that you have priority in the event of bankruptcy. However, the clause is already junior to all other obligations (because a bankrupt firm will be making ~0% of GDP in profit and hence have no clause obligations), so this doesn’t really seem like it makes much difference. The issue is dilution in scenarios when the company does well, which is when the most junior claims (typically common equity, but in this case actually the clause) perform best.
The fundamental reason these two approaches will not work is that the value of an investment is determined by the net present value of future cashflows (and their probability distribution). Given that the clause is intended to have a fixed impact on these flows (as laid out in II.A.2), the impact on firm valuation is also rather fixed, and there is relatively little that clever financial engineering can do about it.
3) The clause will have claim only to profits attributable to the existing shares at the time of the signing on. Any subsequent equity will have a claim on profits unencumbered by the clause. For example, if a company with 80 shares signs on to the clause, then issues 10 more shares to the market, the maximum % of profits that would be owed is 50%*80/(80+10) = 44.4%
This would indeed avoid most of the problems in attracting new capital (save only the fear that a management team willing to screw over their previous investors will do so to you in the future, which is something investors think about a lot).
However, it would also largely undermine the clause by being easy to evade due to the fungibility of capital. Consider a new startup, founded by three guys in a basement, that signs the clause. Over the next few years they will raise many rounds of VC, eventually giving up the majority of the company, all excluded from the clause. Additionally, they pay themselves and employees in stock or stock options, which are also exempt from the clause. Eventually they IPO, having successfully diluted the clause-affected shares to ~1%. In order to finish the job, they then issue some additional new equity and use the proceeds to buy back the original shares.
One interesting point on the other side, however, is the curious tendency for tech investors to ignore dilution. Many companies will exclude stock-based-comp from their adjusted earnings, and analysts/investors are often willing to go along with this, saying “oh but it’s a non-cash expense”. Furthermore, SBC is excluded from Free Cash Flow, which is the preferred metric for many tech investors. So it is possible that (for a while) investors would simply ignore it.
Apologies that this was confusing, and thanks for trying to deconfuse it :-)
Subsequent feedback on this (not reflected in the report) is that issuing low-value super-junior equity at the time of signing (and then holding it in trust) is probably the best option for this.